Going Home
by FloreatCastellum
Summary: A week after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry goes home.


They had understood him completely. He had no idea if they had plans or not, but if they had, they dropped them immediately, with no suggestions to rearrange or go another time, when there weren't so many funerals and reporters. Neither had Mrs Weasley tried to persuade them otherwise or asked them to go with some security - not that she ever said much anymore. They ate their breakfast silently, only murmuring to pass the marmalade or pour orange juice; it was much like all of their mornings lately.

Out among the blooming daffodils and last of the bluebells in the garden they gathered.

'I haven't passed my test,' Ginny said.

'You can side-along with me,' said Harry.

'Don't splinch yourself,' Ron warned. They smiled weakly, and Harry felt Ginny's small hand grip his tightly.

'Ready?' Hermione asked him quietly. He could see her glancing over his shoulder, and there was no doubt in his mind that yet another reporter was lurking in the bushes.

'Yeah,' he said, and so they vanished from the Burrow with an almighty crack.

They appeared behind the church, just at the edge of the little forest that backed onto it. They had hoped that this would be the most discreet place, but just a little way ahead a man with a labrador wheeled round and stared at them, confused.

'Morning!' Ron called brightly, with a wave.

'Ron!' moaned Hermione. 'Don't-'

'He's already seen us, better to be friendly than look shifty.'

'Come on,' Harry muttered, and he began to lead them out of the woods, though he hadn't let go of Ginny's hand.

Last time he and Hermione had been here, it had been covered in snow, and it had been dark. Now, under a glorious pale blue sky, the graveyard and church looked quaint, even welcoming. The grass was well kept and the gravestones were dotted with bursts of colour - flowers and trinkets and cards. There were people there too, not grieving but popping in and out of the church, walking their dogs, a caretaker trimming the hedge with a huge pair of shears.

Ron and Ginny, who had never been there, looked around curiously - Harry followed Ginny's gaze to the stone church. He remembered how the stained glass had cast colours on the snow before, and how the music from the choir had echoed out, but he hadn't appreciated the pointed arches and intricately carved doors, nor the gothic belfry or the branch of ivy that hugged the wall over the entrance. Muggles were bustling around it, carrying out tables and leaning ladders against walls, carrying coils of bunting.

'Church fete?' Ron suggested.

'Must be.'

They walked on through the gravestones; they knew where to go this time. The air was sweet; blossom was falling from the trees and the grass had recently been cut, Harry could see Hermione closing her eyes and leaning her head back to breathe it in.

They reached the grave of Lily and James Potter, and this time Harry kneeled before it, wiping away the soggy dead leaves that had collected on the grooves and edges of the stone. He looked down at the flowers, expecting to see the remains of the Christmas roses he and Hermione had left, but instead saw different ones - still dead and brown as expected - but in a more traditional bunch shape. Two bunches, one that looked like they may have been calla lilies and one, less brown but still withered, of daffodils.

'I think Remus left those,' said Ginny quietly, noticing his confusion. 'He told me, not long before… He told me he came here on your mother's birthday, and I suppose he must have come for your father's birthday too.'

'That was brave of him,' said Harry, slightly ashamed to hear his voice crack. He suddenly wished he were alone, that the others couldn't see him like this, but he knew that if he were alone he would want them here too.

He took his wand out of his pocket, and from it blossomed a bouquet of white heather and blue iris, which he lay gently. His hand lingered on the ground, and he thought desperately of the stone he had dropped somewhere in the Forbidden Forest, a sudden urge to go there and retrace his steps.

He felt Ginny's hand on his shoulder. 'Do you want me to move the dead flowers?' she asked him.

He shook his head, and touched his wand to the bouquets - they bloomed into colour again. He knew it wouldn't last long, but he didn't want to get rid of Remus's tributes, not yet.

He heard quiet muttering behind him, and then Ron's voice saying, 'Mate, we're going to go and give those Muggles a hand with the tables, all right? Take your time.'

He nodded, filled with relief and gratitude, and it was as though as soon as they left he felt the freedom to grieve. The tears fell, and Ginny kneeled next to him.

He had come because it was all over, and it occurred to him that some people might have talked to the grave, as though those lying underneath could hear. But they could not hear, and whether or not he told them that the war was won would make no difference; they either knew or they didn't. Graves were there for the living, and if the dozens of funerals he had attended over the past week had taught him anything, it was that he would never be the sort of person that could talk to himself in the middle of a graveyard. He needed the stone, and he had never wanted anything more. Except…

Ginny rested her head on his shoulder; he hadn't noticed that his arm was around her, and he pulled her closer to him.

'Sorry,' he muttered.

'Don't be silly,' she murmured back.

'Remus was here just a few weeks ago,' he said.

'Yes. He told me he usually came here for their birthdays, and Halloween.'

_He never took me_, Harry thought viciously, then immediately felt guilty. The anger of grief sprung up everywhere for him, all he could do was swallow it down. He imagined Remus here, alone, maybe disguised as Harry had been, soon to be a father, risking it all to lay flowers for his long-dead friends. He wondered if anybody else had, for all those years. Sirius hadn't been able to, of course, and while he expected some did on Halloween for the first few years, surely the passing of time and blurring of dates had meant that Lily and James had lay here in solitude.

He wondered if Aunt Petunia had ever been here.

He stood, and wiped hurriedly at his face, breathing deeply. Ginny rose too, but didn't reach for his hand, simply gave him the space he needed.

He looked away from the graves, further down the row. There were more Potter graves here, more family he had never known, and as he read the names he thought of the faces he had seen years ago in the mirror of Erised, and wondered if they had been real.

'These must have been my dad's parents,' he said to Ginny, staring at the gravestone of Euphemia and Fleamont 'Monty' Potter. 'They died just a few weeks before I was born… Only two days apart.'

'Dragon pox, maybe,' said Ginny quietly. 'There was an epidemic of it back then, and it was very contagious.'

'Dad would have already been in hiding,' he said hollowly. He read the epitaph slowly, thinking of how it was probably his father that had chosen it.

_To unpathed waters, undreamed shores. _

'Maybe you were named for this person,' said Ginny suddenly, and he looked over to see she was standing in front of the grave of Henry Potter, who had died when his father was still a young boy. 'Must be your great-grandfather,' she said.

'The one who endures to the end will be saved,' Harry recited from the gravestone. 'Yeah sounds like they might have been hoping I'd… be inspired by him or something.'

He wondered what he might have been told, what family stories may have come from Henry and Monty and Euphemia, or the others whose graves were so weathered he could barely read their names. He wondered what his father had hoped he would live up to, whether it was some great deed or time of suffering Henry had gone through, or whether it was something as simple as him being his father's favourite grandparent.

'Everything all right?' came Hermione's hesitant voice.

He turned. Ron and Hermione, seeing that he and Ginny had stood and moved away from his parents, had returned.

'Look,' he said, and he pointed out the graves of his extended family. 'I wish I could know more,' he said.

'There are wizarding historians that will look into it all for you,' said Ron. 'Muriel did the Prewett side, remember, Ginny?'

'Only as a way to criticise dad,' said Ginny, grinning. 'No Ministers for Magic on the Weasley side.'

They left the graveyard at a leisurely pace. Now that it was approaching lunchtime, the sun rising higher and the back of Ron's neck was growing pink. They stopped at a corner shop where Hermione insisted on buying him suncream ('It's a good thing one of us remembered to bring Muggle money!'), and they picked up bottles of water.

The cobbled streets and stone buildings were charming, the village pub looked cosy with a huge butterfly bush covering the front of the building, the stream trickled prettily, weaving under streets and bridges. Harry watched a heavily pregnant woman in sunglasses walk casually along the stream towards the post office, and wondered if his mother had ever done the same. Perhaps as a child he might have learned to ride a bike along here, as that child was doing, or his dad might have put him on his shoulders, like that man over there, or maybe they would have fed the ducks, like that old woman-

They reached the war memorial in the village square, and as they approached it shifted into the statue of the Potters. At their feet, hidden from the muggles, the base of the statue was carpeted in flowers and messages. Harry crouched to read them while the others looked carefully at the statue.

_Thank you, Harry. _

_God bless you, Harry Potter. _

_Victory!_

_Thank you to the Potter family for your sacrifice, may Lily and James rest in peace and Harry go forth in glory. _

'Harry,' said Ron sharply, and Harry looked up to see a gaggle of people gawking at him, their mismatched Muggle clothes and amazed expressions immediately outing them as wizards.

'Let's go,' he muttered. 'Before they get a photo to sell to _The Prophet_.' He was touched by the cards and flowers, just as he had been touched by the sign at the house, but he had no desire to speak to more strangers or hear their words of thanks right now. He was exhausted, and only willing to share this day with those closest to him.

They walked away, agreeing that when everything calmed down they would come back for the cards and messages, because it was only right, hoping that the unknown people would have enough sense to resist going to the press and launching a new batch of sappy, exaggerated articles.

'Do you still want to go to the house?' asked Hermione. 'It'll probably be the same as the statue, remember the sign?'

'Yeah, I still want to go,' said Harry. 'I've probably got a bit more authority to ask people to leave there.'

Thankfully, there was no one around when they reached the ruined house with the rusted iron gate and low wall. It was strange, approaching it. Harry looked to the window and half expected to see his father through it, as he had done during that awful Christmas, but instead all he saw was a bird, flitting from the overgrown front garden up to a nest at the edge of the collapsed upper floor.

'God,' he heard Ron breathe. He turned to look at them; both Ron and Ginny looked aghast, disturbed. He was not sure what they had been expecting, but they hadn't been as prepared as he and Hermione.

He placed his hand on the gate, and the sign appeared again. They all gathered round, and read the messages, so many of them now messages of congratulations and gratitude, as at the statue.

'This is wonderful,' said Ginny, her hand reaching out to trace some of the messages.

Harry nodded, and looked up at the ruined house, the rubble scattered over the lawn and the ivy creeping in through the broken windows. He pushed open the gate.

'Harry, no!' squeaked Hermione. 'I told you last time, it's not safe.'

'Yeah, wouldn't want to come into any danger here,' he said dryly, squeezing round the sign.

Ginny followed, him, and then Ron tugged Hermione after them too, up the cracked path and onto the slate doorstep.

Up close, he could see that the door at one point had been a rich red colour, but over the years the paint had flaked and faded away, the brass letterbox now dull and stained.

'Harry-' began Hermione, but he took out his wand.

'_Alohomora_,' he said, and there was a slight clunking sound - the door seemed to move in by about a centimeter.

He felt the cold air from inside the house through the slight gap, and he pushed on the door. It creaked and groaned and barely moved with the stiffness, and briefly he imagined the way his father had run to it and tried to push it back closed against Voldemort, as though James himself were keeping this door closed. But eventually it relented, and with a scrape it opened, leaving him stumbling slightly into it.

He released a deep breath he wasn't aware he was holding.

The air was cold and stale, the light from the open door caught the dust. Their footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor, and for a moment the four of them simply stood there in silence.

The stairs were on the right, just beyond a door, leading up to a landing and away towards the bedroom. On the left was the door to the living room, against the cupboard under the stairs was the pram pushed up against the wall, and underneath it a little pile of wellington boots, including tiny red boots. Did he remember sitting on the bottom step, his father guiding his feet into them? Or was it another imagined fantasy, like the ones he had thought of by the river?

'Harry…?' said Hermione, her voice far more gentle.

'This is where he died,' Harry blurted out. 'My dad, this is… right here. I know because… at Christmas, I saw it all. As though I were Voldemort.'

'I know you did,' said Hermione quietly, and she touched his arm. 'Are you sure you-?'

'He ran from in here,' interrupted Harry, and he walked to the left, through the open door, into the living room.

The sofa his father had sat on with him was covered in a grubby white sheet, as was all the furniture. The collapsed remains of a birds nest was in the fire grate.

Harry walked swiftly forward and pulled off the sheet with a rustling whoosh; a cloud of dust rose into the air. He looked down at the sofa, expecting to see his father's wand, but of course it had been removed - perhaps he had been buried with it.

He wanted to sit on it, to see the room as his father had done, how he himself had done, at one time, but he couldn't bear to touch the ancient, worn fabric. His legs were like stone as he stared down at it, and wondered just how old the sofa was. Had his parents bought it together? Picked it out and then shared it on long evenings, giggled with bottles of wine on it, collapsing onto it in exhaustion when he was a newborn, lounged over each other on it as they listened to the wireless? Maybe they had inherited it from James's parents. Maybe it was uncomfortable and old and they had talked longingly of replacing it, once they got this or that sorted, or maybe they had wanted it reupholstered.

He turned away, and took the sheet off the low coffee table, and then off the ancient, 70s style wireless, and then off the grandfather clock, bustling round the room, suddenly aware that Ron, Hermione and Ginny were helping him, uncovering an armchair, a little table and chairs, a now soundless piano.

He suddenly realised that above the fireplace there was some kind of painting in a battered, gold colour frame, so covered in dust he couldn't see what it was. His heart leaping, he rushed to it and clumsily wiped the front with his hand.

It was a coastal landscape, the waves crashing against a cliff.

He must have looked disappointed, because Ron was suddenly at his side. The girls hadn't noticed, they were unpinning the sheets from the welsh dresser, so Ron spoke in a low tone, just for him. 'It won't be like Hogwarts, wizards rarely have portraits of people in their homes. It's… it's not considered healthy. Not in a family home.'

Harry couldn't help but feel disappointed. It wasn't even that he thought it might be his parents, but any portrait that could talk to him about what life was like here. But he knew, in his heart, that Ron was right - he had never seen a portrait in the Burrow, they belonged in institutions like Hogwarts, not for grieving people to obsess over. How could you ever let go if you could keep talking to them? It wouldn't be the same, anyway, not like if he had the stone.

'Harry,' called Ginny, and he went over to the welsh dresser.

The upper shelves were packed with books, a vast mixture of muggle and magical. Someone in the house had loved fiction, perhaps both of them, for there were as many novels as non-fiction.

But then, the lower shelves were littered with photographs. The girls had wiped the dust off most, and were continuing with the rest, and he looked at them carefully. They were all black and white, and they broke his heart.

It was what his life could have been, his beaming, happy father, through childhood and as a teenager, in the arms of a glamourous, dark haired woman and a man who looked strikingly like him, but with much neater hair. There James was on a donkey at the seaside, waving gleefully at the camera, and in another his father crouched behind him showing him how to hold a fishing rod correctly. In one, a cringing teenage James tried in vain to dodge his mother's kiss, while another showed the whole family beaming with James, looking much like Harry did now, in his Hogwarts uniform with the school in the background. Harry felt a stab of jealousy as he watched James blow out birthday candles with Monty beaming in the background.

'Look!' exclaimed Hermione, who had opened the cupboards of the dresser. 'I love this game!' She pulled out a box of Scrabble, but it had got damp on one corner and- 'Eurgh!'

A shining swarm of silverfish poured out of the cupboard, and they leapt back. Harry laughed, but was not as squeamish as the others, so crouched down to look into the cupboard, the insects scurrying from his wand light.

'Well, I'm not going to pull any of them out, but there are a lot of board games in here.'

'All of them muggle?' asked Hermione. 'I saw Monopoly in there too.'

'I don't think so, I've never heard of _Doxies and Dragons_ and there's a gobstones set in here too. Plus a _My First Cauldron Kit_.'

'Just close the door, I don't want any of those insects crawling up my leg,' groaned Ron, while Ginny cackled at him. Harry grinned up at him and closed the door, brushing some of the silverfish off his knee.

'Mum and I always beat Dad at Scrabble,' said Hermione vaguely. 'He came up with good words but was rubbish at using the triple letter squares and things.'

'We're going next week,' Ron told her soothingly. 'You'll have them home soon.'

She smiled weakly at him, and they moved to the dresser on the other side of the fireplace. Here too, were photographs, though many had been taken out of their frames.

'Maybe it was Remus,' said Harry. 'Or other friends. Some of them have probably ended up in my photo album.'

'Not all of them though,' said Ginny. 'Look at this, it's fantastic!'

His mother, and the dark haired, glamorous looking woman he supposed was his grandmother, laughing and arm in arm, a nearly empty looking bottle of champagne in Euphemia's free hand.

'Her robes are the best thing I've ever seen in my life,' said Ginny. Harry looked closer - the picture couldn't have been more late 70s if it had tried. Euphemia's robes were red, sequined, with huge bell sleeves. Both her and Lily wore their hair in huge, feathered curls.

'Sirius is in this one!' exclaimed Ron, wiping the dust from another frame. 'I suppose Remus didn't take it because… Well, here it is.'

He handed it to Harry, who saw his godfather, strapping and rather smug looking, one arm slung around his father, both of them with cigarettes and leather jackets. 'Ah,' said Harry, amused. 'He kept his habit secret.'

'Oh, everyone smoked back then, didn't they?' said Ginny. 'It was the height of cool.'

'He's in this one too,' said Hermione. 'A bit less rebellious.' She showed them a photo of Sirius, James, and Monty, all of them in Christmas hats and cheering at the camera.

'He ran away from home,' said Harry. 'And lived with them here. I should have asked him more about it.'

'I prefer this cupboard,' said Ron suddenly - Harry jumped slightly. He had not been aware that Ron had crouched down and opened it. 'Bunch of cocktail glasses and stuff. Loads of firewhiskey and wine - oh! Look, dragon vodka, and rum - Merlin, cream of coconut, this is retro. Hey, Ginny - dare you to drink it-'

'Get lost!'

'Go on, ten galleons-'

'No chance!'

They pulled out more and more drinks from the bar area, and with it found more and more photos. These had not been preserved in glass frames, so most were difficult to see clearly as most of them had faded, turned yellow and curled with age, but they all seemed to show large parties - shadowy figures danced and blew kisses at the camera, one seemed to show people gathered around the piano, huge groups squeezed into frame.

'Do you reckon the witch in the sequined robes might have been an extrovert?' asked Ginny wryly.

Harry smiled, but he felt cold when he thought about how silent the house was now. 'Come on,' he said, and he left the living room, through the door that he remembered his mother coming through, pushing her dark red hair out of her eyes.

He found himself in a kitchen, and it warmly reminded him of the kitchen at the Burrow. Like the living room they had just left, it had dark beams across the ceiling, and like the Burrow it had a large, wooden table, which clearly had been deemed tough enough to not be covered.

Harry slowly went through the cupboards, imaging his parents drinking from the glasses, washing up the plates. Anything consumable with the potential to rot had clearly been vanished away, most cupboards and shelves lay bare except for occasional mouse droppings.

Over the sink was a window that looked out onto a long back garden, and beyond a vast, untouched valley. No doubt as long as he stayed lower than the house, James Potter would have been able to fly his broom here. And so too, would Harry, had he been given the chance.

It was overgrown and tangled now, but between the waist-high weeds he could see a raised patio, what might have once been flowerbeds, and the garden sloping down towards the stream.

He walked over to the larger windows by the table to get a better view, and his foot knocked an old, forgotten metal bowl. It must have been for their cat.

Next they went through to the dining room, now making a horseshoe to be on the other side of the staircase. It was far grander than the kitchen - at some point the sheet of the chandelier had fallen off, and it was now wrapped in cobwebs. Beneath, they pulled the heavy sheet off to reveal a dark mahogany table, somehow still glossy after all these years. Above another, more ornate fireplace, they pulled down another sheet to find a flecked mirror.

One corner, however, was exposed to the elements after the collapse of the upstairs room. The floor was coated in leaves and mud, and the walls were stained from years of rain and damp and ice.

'I'm going to go upstairs,' Harry said.

'No,' said Hermione firmly. 'Come on now, Harry, it's really not safe, it's all collapsed.'

'Well be ready to apparate me to St Mungo's then,' he said, returning to the hallway. The others followed, and Harry noticed that Hermione looked almost frightened.

'You go up, mate,' said Ron. 'Hermione and I will stay down here, maybe put some of the sheets back?'

'Cheers,' said Harry, and he turned to Ginny, unsure of how to ask…

'I'm coming with you,' she said firmly.

'Tread carefully,' said Harry, and they climbed the creaky stair, their hands becoming filthy as the gripped the dusty bannister.

Harry tried to push the memory of Voldemort climbing these stairs out of his mind, instead looking at the photos along the wall, swiping a hand over each one to clear the dust. Some of them looked positively Victorian, generations of dark haired men and women, some of them bespectacled, going back to drawings and tiny portraits that didn't talk, but smiled demurely out at them.

They got to the top of the stairs, and found that the runner had been rolled up and left neatly at the top. 'Who do you think did all this?' he asked Ginny. 'Remus? The Ministry? Who comes and packs up houses like this?'

'It was Remus,' Ginny said quietly. He didn't ask how she knew, because he suddenly realised that her eyes were rather red looking.

'I'm sorry,' he said quickly. 'You don't have to be here-'

She grasped his hand. 'I do, and I want to be here.'

He pulled her close and kissed her forehead. She looked up at him and squeezed his hand once more.

They found the bathroom first, and lifted the lid off a slightly rotting hamper to find bundles of laundry, smelling of nothing but damp and must after all these years. Shirts and robes and dozens of baby clothes. The stand-alone, roll top bath had a little baby bath shoved hastily underneath, the medicine cabinet had bottles of Sleekeazy Hair Potion and toothpaste and little green bottles with the labels too faded to read.

'What are these?' Harry asked, to himself, but he suddenly saw Ginny blushing.

'Oh, who knows… Let's go in a different room.' She took the bottle off him, placed it carefully back and pulled him away.

They found a spare room-cum-study, with a beautiful old antique desk, dried up ink bottles still on the green-leather inset. There were dozens of drawers, and Harry immediately opened all of them, rifling through the parchment to find bills, old maps and a guide book to Italy, and then, that treasure trove - letters.

He folded them carefully, placing as many into his pocket as he dared. He didn't want to read them here, but he knew that he would never be able to stop thinking about them if he didn't read them at some point. Ginny was searching the top of the desk, and suddenly said, 'here, your dad was halfway through this letter.'

_Dear Frank, _

_Hope you and the family are well, and not as cooped up as us. Still don't have my cloak back and Dumbledore has advised us to avoid even sneaky trips round the village with the pram, so cabin fever is running a little high with us just walking round the garden. I need your advice on that matter actually. I had some nice mistletoe growing on my cedar tree but it's started to die off. Lily likes mistletoe for some of her potions, so I don't want to lose it - any ideas?_

_I have to confess though (and don't snitch on me to Dumbledore!), we went on a little family jaunt last night after I couldn't sleep and selfishly got the family up too. Took them to a beach my dad used to take me to. Bloody freezing, but I thought if I made it remote enough there wasn't much risk anyway, especially in the middle of the night. We're paying for it now though - it's like Batty always warned us, let your child sleep or they won't let you. Tantrums all day, but it serves me right. How are your little one's teething problems doing?_

_How did Alice get on with that book Lily gave her? She's missing the book club, it would be nice if you two feel like popping over for dinner on _

It stopped abruptly there. Maybe he had gone to ask Lily when was best, or perhaps, as the letter suggested, Harry was having a tired tantrum. As he had with his mother's letter, he ended up reading it over and over again, staring at the scrawl of the handwriting, James's habit of his writing gradually sloping down on the right side just like his.

He took a shuddering breath, and folded the letter, placing it with the others in his pocket. His hands were shaking slightly, and Ginny took them in hers. 'Are you all right?' she asked.

'Yes,' he lied.

But he couldn't hold back the tears any further when they were in the next room. His parents room had a stunning view over the back garden, a large bed with what looked like a homemade throw over it, and a delicate vanity dresser for his mother. He went over to it, letting the dusty pearls and tarnished silver roll through his fingers, imagining what she would have looked like wearing it, what her favourites would have been. There were bottles of perfume, too, but they had gone stale, and the make up had all dried up or melted away. The drawers, in the dresser and in the bedside tables seemed too private, so he didn't open them, but he opened the large built in wardrobe.

The clothes were now moth eaten, but on his mother's dresses and robes… He wasn't sure if he was imagining, it, maybe just hoping, but there was the trace of mandarin in the air, or maybe jasmine…

He heard Ginny giggle, and he turned to her. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm really sorry, but I just love the 70s. Look. Look at these.'

The trousers were flared, and also orange.

Harry tried not to laugh. 'Put those back.'

'They look like they would fit you.'

'Stop,' he said, his shoulders shaking.

'I haven't even brought out the matching jumper yet.'

'I hope no one laughs at my fashion choices when I'm dead!' he said, trying to look reproaching.

'Sweetheart, I laugh at them now,' she teased. But she put back the flares, and apologised to Harry, not that she needed to. She had made him laugh, in this house of all places.

They couldn't go any further. They had now reached where Harry's nursery once was, looking down into a pile of rubble and out over to the neighbouring houses. They stood there in silence, the slight spring breeze ruffling their hair, a few crumbs of the building falling down into the garden as they edged as close as they dared along the broken corridor. In the nest that Harry had spotted earlier, three tiny, wrinkled chicks with massive orange beaks were screaming hungrily up at them.

'I'm surprised I survived that,' said Harry, nodding to the rubble. 'Hagrid said he dug me out of the rubble.'

Ginny gripped his hand tighter. 'Are you glad you came here?'

'Yes,' he said, after a long pause. 'The time wasn't right last time, but… Yes, I am. I'm sorry that you had to-'

'I'm glad you shared it with me,' she said. 'And I am glad most of all, that you survived what happened here.'

Harry swallowed and nodded, looking back down at the rubble. 'I didn't realise Hermione knew what I saw that night…'

'She didn't tell me or Ron, as far as I know,' said Ginny. 'I'm… I'm so sorry you saw that.'

'No, now I know,' said Harry firmly. 'I know what happened here. And now that I've come here, I know what this house used to be, how full it was, how loud it was… How happy people were here.'

Ginny hesitated. 'It's… It's your house, you know. You could rebuild it. If you wanted.'

Harry thought for a long time. His hand gripped the cold, crumbling plaster on the broken wall of his old nursery. 'No,' he said at last. 'I could never be happy here. Not fully. Even if I made it my own, even if I swapped rooms around, I'd always be thinking, this is where mum ran, this is where dad fell. I mean, how could I ever have children here, and not think about what happened?'

It was the the first time he had mentioned having children, not just in front of Ginny but perhaps ever in his life. The possibility of a future, a happy one, maybe even a family lay before him now, and he knew that it was what he wanted. Even so, he avoided Ginny's gaze, slightly embarrassed, slightly worried, that he had admitted such a desire to her.

'I want my own home,' he said. 'With nothing but happy memories in.'

'That sounds perfect,' Ginny said.

He looked at her. 'I want…' The words stuck in his throat. 'I love you,' he said to her.

She smiled gently. 'I love you too.'

'And I can only see you in that future,' he blurted out at last. 'Is that… Is that what-?'

She kissed him, deeply, and he moved his hand from the crumbling wall to the small of her back-

The floorboard beneath their feed shifted slightly, and they both yelped, Ginny clinging onto his shoulders and Harry throwing an arm across the remains of the doorway. They didn't fall, but a few more chunks of brick crumbled and bounced down onto the rubble below.

'Harry! Ginny!' came Hermione's panicked yell. 'Are you all right?'

'Fine!' Ginny shouted over her shoulder. She then looked back at him and they laughed nervously.

'Better listen to Hermione and head back to safety,' Harry said.

Ginny grinned. 'Don't tell her we nearly fell - she'll be delighted to hear she was right.'

They left, hand in hand. Harry feeling that strange calmness that came after crying, closing the faded red door onto the silent house of Godric's Hollow.


End file.
